Post by quartermass on May 28, 2008 21:01:31 GMT -8

Premier Camping was really poorly run/organized this year. The festival was raaaad, but the Premiere camping, which is generally excellent, was terrible.

For $60/Vehicle/Night you can enjoy additional benefits and privileges.

Premier camping provides a reserved site, area enclosed with cedar fence to provide an enjoyable, private and secure atmosphere. Experienced staff on hand to provide needed assistance and to monitor sites for unauthorized guests.

"Experienced Staff" who were directing people who paid into the regular area, who didn't have any information on anything you had questions with. Specifically the shuttles (which I will get to).

On day one, and part of day two, this "private" area wasn't staffed, and was filled with the regular campers.

A special air-conditioned shuttle service to the amphitheatre from campground. Premiere campers will be allowed early entry.

1. Shuttles were late EVERY DAY of the show. Monday, we were told to line-up at 10am, and the shuttle didn't get there until 11am. No one was admitted early any day of the show, and the "good" spaces on the rock-face (AKA the main reason people pay the extra money - to get in early and get a sweet spot) were taken up by people coming in the main gate. EVERY DAY OF THE SHOW. The place to get back on the shuttle to get back to the camp site was closed off on day one (at least temporarily), and the whole thing was fucking bullshit.

One shuttle running half an hour to an hour late every day of the festival

From what I saw, showing Transformers on an outdoor screen is a pretty fucking weak attempt at this.

I suppose the main issue was the shuttles. It's not as if I can't walk, but you can't get to the premiere entry if you aren't in a shuttle (they don't let you walk there), so you are totally stuck waiting around for them to get their shit together this year. On Monday (festival started earlier) was news to everyone except the concert goers. The shuttle people had no idea, the premiere camping manager had no idea. We convinced a manager, and he told us they would get a shuttle there by 10 am. So, we lined up at 10am and waited until 11am. 1 hour. Fuuuuuuuck.

Post by magmazing on May 28, 2008 21:14:37 GMT -8

Regular camping also had issues. We arrived Friday night and had a couple friends were to arrive Saturday afternoon. We had their camping gear in our car. In previous years we had no problems saving parking spaces, but this year the staff were being hard asses and not allowing anyone to leave open spots. No good reason was given. We ended up lying saying we saw our friends in a different part of the field and ganged together with other campers and did our own thing. Once staff showed up to where we were, we were already setup and entrenched. What's worse is that the lineup to get into camping Saturday was ridiculous partially due to the fact that some people who were only coming for a day and wanted to pay for camping at the entrance were told that they HAD to pay for ALL 3 days and get a refund when they left. Not many had $120 sitting in their pocket so they had to get out of their cars, walk over to the nearby ATM and caused massive delays. You'd think after all these years they'd have the camping figured out properly.

Post by thecure102 on May 28, 2008 21:18:18 GMT -8

I was kind of pissed that the "security" people came walking by my campsite every five minutes. No privacy there. Where was this special menu? I never saw that, hmmm. And the private showers was a joke. I learned a lot of good things for next year though!

Post by therodersabides on May 28, 2008 21:33:28 GMT -8

Holy crap! My girlfriend and I were pissed that premier camping sold out so early and we had to get normal camping. Now I'm glad we didn't spend the extra money. We showed up Friday around 7:00pm and got what we thought was a great spot with only a five or so minuet walk from the convenience store. We were only part way down row 11. Where was premier camping? We were so close we thought we may have been put into premier.

Post by dogglesnoffer on May 28, 2008 22:43:20 GMT -8

Tons of room (We had two tents and set up a nice size silver tarp to keep out the sun and rain and still had gobs of space)

No bag check / no ticket taking on monday at the bus drop off venue entrance (we noticed this on sunday too and prepared ourselves for monday with a bottle of prosecco for the flaming lips...but.....no corkscrew!! As for the tickets..well, we played honest and didn't sell them..only because we were too lazy to walk back up the hill to the main entrance. That was dumb as we could have bought like 2 or 3 $11 beers with the money)

Finding friends from Seattle just a stones throw away

Nice neighbors (hope you made it to work ok)

More super cool Canadians camping in a sweet Volkswagon Bus (wish I got your contact info for trips up to visit our neighbors to the north)

All in all, some great pluses.

As for the minuses... well I think you all got the rest covered.

I still had way more fun than I thought I'd have so I'd say............Worth it.

Post by truguillotine on May 29, 2008 10:13:06 GMT -8

I stayed in the regular camping this year and it had its ups and downs.

I was in row 27 which was okay, everyone around us was pretty nice and I only had to yell at someone once (i'll come back to that).

I really hope someone on this board heard about the whole Brittany episode. For those of you who don't know what happened here's the abbreviated version. This chick (Brittany) was on some sort of drugs and she was pretty far gone at 6am when I was woken up by her yelling "Puppies, Range rover, your so beautiful" over and over again. This was followed by her boyfriend screaming at her to shut the fuck up and throwing her on the ground repeatedly. Once they were on the ground, they would make out for a few minutes and she would be up and at it again. I would have to say that the best thing I heard all weekend was " Brittany, put your fucking pants on!". Eventually she ended up naked on top of someones RV. I don't know what happened to her after that.

The dog that was wondering around our campsite all weekend, who's fucking dog was that. Anytime a car would pass by it would run under the front tires like it wanted to get hit. Pretty cool dog though.

The Canadians behind us....Fuck you guys! I understand that its cool to stay up and drink till the sun comes up. I wasn't pissed about you being loud and drunk and having the whole fucking campsite over for sing alongs, I actually kind of liked it. It really pissed me of when you decided to move out of your campsite, wander over into my campsite and then decide that you want to empty your stomach contents in front of my tent door. What the fuck man! I was about to beat your ass with my maglite but you moved after I yelled at you the first time. Seriously...

To the girl that wandered into my tent thinking that it was yours. You woke me up at 5 am, thanks for that. You were drunk and it was pretty amusing that it took you two minutes to find the door that you came in. I hope you found your way back to your campsite.

Thank you to the Honey Bucket guys for coming every morning to empty and clean them. A+ for you all.

So yeah, next year I think that were gonna try to get the premier camping or just camp off site.

Post by foot on May 30, 2008 9:22:05 GMT -8

I agree that regular camping had it's ups and downs. It was still quite a bit better than previous camping experiences. A map of the campgrounds would have been nice, also numbers bolted to the Honey Buckets dont help much at 3am when I am wasted and lost.

We had some pretty cool neighbors, my friend Kevin met more than me but every morning he had some great stories, I on the other hand was an old man and went to bed as soon as we got back most nights. So anyone in area 20 that met a guy named Kevin I am sure he says hello. ha ha

Definatley a cool crowd, not the typical hippie fest for sure. I will return to the gorge for more concerts for sure, definatley worth the drive from Montana.